4 Tips For Keeping Your Home Clean & Organized WITH Kids

Hi all! If you’re like me and you have children, you will agree that keeping your home clean while they are underfoot can present many challenges. Today we have a guest blog post from Ann Shirley giving us some great tips for keeping a clean AND organized home! Enjoy!

Keeping your home clean and tidy is always a challenge. It seems like the minute you clean one area of the home, another area becomes a disaster. This is especially true in households with young children. Children are notorious for making a mess as they play. This can be minor things like leaving toys laying around or bigger issues such as spilling food and other items on the carpet. Maintaining the appearance of your home and keeping things clean and organized doesn’t have to be an impossible task. With these 4 tips your house will remain neat, clean, and tidy with or without kids!

Clean as you go. Sure, you may not be in the mood to clean after working a long day. However, if you make a point to clean up a little bit when you see things are out of place or in need of a dusting it could save you a lot of time down the road. Whenever you enter a room, take an extra five or ten minutes to do a quick cleaning. Wipe down tables, return items to their proper place, and throw away any trash that may have been left behind. If time allows, wash any dirty dishes and vacuum and/or sweep the floor. You’ll be surprised at how much easier it is to clean your home and keep it tidy when you use the clean-as-you-go approach as opposed to saving it to do all at once.

Make your kids pick up around the house, too! There’s no reason why your kids can’t help with the cleaning every once in a while. One mom took a very proactive approach in getting her kids to help clean up by grounding them until they earned enough points via cleaning to be ungrounded. While you don’t have to be that harsh with your children, you should make them clean in exchange for an allowance or permission to participate in an activity that they enjoy. This way they will learn to value and importance of hard work while you get an extra hand with cleaning the home. The more people that help clean, the easier and quicker it will be to get done.

Get organized! One of the easiest ways to keep the house looking spotless is to get organized. Invest in various organizers for your home including bookshelves, storage bins, closet organizers, shoe racks, and any other organizational system you find helpful. You may also want to spend some time browsing Pinterest for new organization tips. Just remember to ALWAYS keep things organized.Return items to their proper place when you are done using them. This will help your home be free of clutter and mess. Another important part of staying organized is throwing away items you no longer use or need. Just as discussed in an earlier post, kids too, can help with this. As you go through old clothes and your children’s toys, ask yourself “when is the last time I wore, played with, or used this?” If your answer is “more than two months ago” you may want to toss it. Chances are you won’t be using it anytime soon and there’s no sense keeping it around to waste space and further add clutter to your home.

Consider hiring a maid or cleaning service. If you truly don’t have time to clean up your home and take care of your family, it may be time to invest in a cleaning or maid service. Make a list of the problem areas in your home and exactly what you need done. This will help the service provider to know what you are looking for. Also, be sure to ask questions such as what the cost of services is and what is included in the cost. Let the company know if there are any areas that are off-limits or any special requests you may have.

What are your best tips for keeping your home clean? If you have children do you find it more challenging to keep your home tidy?

Ann Shirley is a freelance writer that enjoys writing about a variety of different topics. She works from home with her husband, two children, and beloved Maine Coon cat. She is always looking for ways to keep her home free of clutter and eager to share her findings with others through her writing.

I'm Mrs. Houseful. Or Natasha if you're not into nicknames! I'm a married mom of four. I love chatting it up with so many of you all. I love traveling, sewing, cooking, and trying new things. I also collect Box Tops For Education, and refer to myself as the crazy Box Tops Lady. Send me yours if you don't collect for your children! You need to contact me? Send me an email! natasha@housefulofnicholes.com

Cleaning as you go definitely helps us. It cuts back the mess that we have to clean at the end of day. I’m also a firm believer in kids having chores and helping out around the house. Thanks for sharing these tips!

Nice tips. Home cleaning is very essential to keep home clean, fresh and healthy. Hiring a maid service is ideal solution for home cleaning in busy schedule. Involving kids in home cleaning that’s great idea for making home cleaning more better and enjoyable.

Pria

November 17, 2014 at 3:41 am

Hey Natasha, I’ve got lots of cleaning takeaways! We have this rule “Do not walk empty handed” which means everyone should be responsible of their trash, plates, shoes and anything that they’ve used so we could maintain cleanliness and it really works. Saved your ideas too!